Jeremy's Blog 8th September 2023: Making the Best of Water

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 7th September 2023

Water supply is steadily becoming a critical issue in the United Kingdom with agriculture needing to look ahead and ensure both access to water and making the best use of it.

Only last year, four Sussex councils were proposing water neutrality policies for housing development – that no more use should be made of water once houses are built than before – while, earlier this year, South East Water ceased to be able to supply parts of East Sussex for a while. At least as striking, this week’s Scottish Programme for Government (the equivalent of the King’s Speech) includes two references to guarding against future water scarcity in Scotland:

• “support action to address emerging climate issues for land use, with roundtables on water scarcity and on decarbonising rural machinery and equipment”
• “to assess how water, sewerage and drainage services can adapt to the impacts of climate change to avoid water scarcity through future legislation.

Agriculture’s reliance on water was highlighted by the impact of last year’s drought on grass growth as much as by East Anglia’s emptying farm reservoirs. Residential use, industry and environmental needs all call on increasingly pressed water supplies. Issues are perhaps sharpest in areas that rely most on abstracting water from diminishing aquifers. Electricity generation has been reported as the fastest growing pressure on abstraction, the source of over 75 per cent of public water supplies in a belt from Dorset to Kent. Water availability is now argued as a limiting factor on development in Cambridgeshire while Anglian Water is developing the network to bring water from north Lincolnshire to each East Anglian county while projecting two major reservoirs.

Farming’s answers naturally start with conserving water with reservoirs, preferably looking to buffer supplies between years not just within a year. We should now look beyond that to making the best use of the water we have, so least is lost by evaporation both in store and on application, minimising losses from reservoirs and improving irrigation efficiency, looking at technology and investment, to deliver greatest effect in the field and the best value from resources.

Away from such higher water use systems, improving soil organic matter, using mixed species pastures, cover crops, avoiding crusts and compaction can all help soil manage water better, retain nutrients, bring resilience to the farm and reduce run off and economic loss. We may look to crop varieties more tolerant of drought and come to see wetter, perhaps poorer, pastures as insurance for the driest years. Can rainwater be usefully harvested from larger building complexes?

The underlying point is that, even if all the intended mitigation of climate change is delivered, we have more climate change to come and to which we will have to adapt.

Water supply is only one of issues in this. We now see more frequent intense bursts of rain, less well absorbed by soils and running off faster, taking nutrients and increasing flood risk on and below the farm. The volatility associated with climate change saw Scotland pair those statements above with “consulting on Scotland’s first Strategy for Flood Resilience”, the sudden surplus of water. Wider still and whether flood, storm, drought, heat, disease or power, adaptation will require actions at farm level. Adaptation will be an increasing part of the agricultural valuer’s conversations with clients seeking appraisal and advice.